This is a report about the creation of a local futsal team for people with mental health problems in Hokkaido and Tohoku in 2012‐2013. The method in this example, which targets a wide area, is not designed to create a highly competitive team. We set the aim to “take part in a big competition as an all-star team” and it was devised so that each player had an equal chance under severe economic and geographical conditions. As a result of a series of activities concerning the creation of the team, a feeling of solidarity beyond the area was provided to the staff, and players gained confidence, a sense of continuity and formed friendships. In each area, more and more people are helping us and there is more recognition of our activities. The local all-star team played a big role in the spread of activities in the northeast and the results achieved were far superior to the results of four all-star teams in the championships.

For psychiatric patients who are deemed to be vulnerable to stress, stress coping ability is vital to live in a community. Sense of coherence (SOC) is a concept of the scale of stress coping ability. This study investigated schizophrenia patients’ SOC and related factors. Participants were 56 patients (34 males and 22 females) with schizophrenia who had attended a psychiatric day-care center. They were asked to respond to the Japanese version of SOC-13 and other scales which included physical activity habits, health habits and mental health status. The average score of the SOC-13 was 52.14±10.68 which is considerably lower than healthy people based on past surveys. In the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) -12 scores, the negative group (4 points or lower) had significantly higher SOC scores than the positive group (5 points or higher). Patients participating in a physical activity program in the day-care center had marginally significantly higher scores on the SOC-13 than non-participants. Moreover, the obese group had significantly lower scores than the non-obese group in both the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scores and the Health Practice Index (HPI) scores. The result indicated the following: patients who are mentally healthy could have better stress coping ability; patients participating in a physical activity program could have better stress coping ability; and patients with obesity could be lower functioning psychologically, socially and occupationally, and have fewer healthy habits than non-obese patients. Further investigation on SOC including interventional studies is seemingly necessary.

Standard evaluations using a detailed practical survey on gross motor function were conducted on two five-year-old preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Furthermore, we examined the effect of interventions related to mobility running and jumping and object manipulation (throwing and catching) capabilities. There were four guide types: ①modeling, ②visual guide, ③body guide and ④visual and body guide to improve their athletic performance. Poor mobility and object manipulation capabilities were observed in the results of evaluation before intervention. The results of intervention for preschool children with ASD showed that all four type guides were effective. Notably, intervention for object manipulation capabilities was more effective and the effect lasted a month longer.

Some of developmentally disabled pupils (DDP) may be accompanied by the characteristic of awkwardness in motion. With this in mind, to test the theory that such awkwardness could be seen in their walking, we created a walking test in this study, conducted it in elementary schools and analyzed data taken by video recording. There were 446 pupils (231 boys and 215 girls) selected as the research sample in two schools. In addition, 13 DDP (12 boys and 1 girl) were included to enable comparison between DDP and normal pupils. In the walking test, pupils were asked to walk between two lines (3 m×20 cm and 3 m×15 cm). The results showed that the number of DDPs stepping out of line was significantly bigger than the number of normal pupils (P<0.01) in the case of natural walking, and also significantly bigger especially for the 12 cm line in the case of rhythmical walking (P<0.05). These findings showed the characteristics DDPs when walking and it may assist in early prognosis and intervention.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationships among exercise participation, resilience and self-growth. The participants of 425 college students (male＝168, female＝254, mean age＝19.16, SD＝1.16) were asked to answer a questionnaire composed of the self-growth scale for university student (SGSUS), the exercise participation assessment scale for university students (EPASUS), and the resilience inventory for daily life of university students (RIDLUS). Exploratory factor analysis, correlation analyses and covariance structural analysis were conducted. The result of exploratory factor analysis identified a one-factor model with 10 items on SGSUS. The results of correlation analyses revealed statistically significant positive correlations between EPASUS, RIDLUS and SGSUS. Covariance structural analysis showed that the path coefficients from “Exercise Participation” to “Resilience” (both “Intrapersonal Resources” and “Social Resources”) and from “Intrapersonal Resources” to “Self-Growth” were statistically significant. The results suggested that higher participation in sports have enhanced intrapersonal resources and that higher intrapersonal resources promoted more cognition and behaviors related to self-growth.

The authors of this study previously observed that some schizophrenic patients who had recovered from their illness had past experience in sports. The patients reported their sports experience during psychotherapy. Thus, this report presents psychotherapy findings for two schizophrenic patients. Patient characteristics include background for the illness and previous sports experience as inner resources. We hypothesize that sports experience is one mechanism for recovery from schizophrenia. The type of schizophrenia that the two patients suffered from was hebephrenia, but the vulnerability as a trait was not severe. Sports experience as an inner resource emerged while they followed their own wishes. It was considered that this may be related to components of body consciousness (this term is similar to “Leiblichkeit” in German) associated with negative symptoms and contributed to recovery from negative symptoms and conscious insight into the disease.